New London – The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is proud to announce the opening of Impossible Utopia, on view through October 20, 2017.

Guido Garaycochea, a Peruvian painter working in New York and Connecticut, has created a compelling installation where each of the works presented has particular meanings and feelings embedded. Their narrative is linked to situations that occurred around the time these pieces were mere thoughts and had yet to be executed.

In the creative process of making his art, Garaycochea returns to his obsession with the concept of power and how to translate it to a visual language. He is inspired from the invisible and brutal physical energy that created mountains and moved tectonic plates, to Michel Foucault’s philosophies about how humans create and control societal power. Garaycochea comments about his work, “In my paintings I endeavor to express my own vision of reality. It is not a tangible reality, but one that evokes a particular magic in each human being, one in constant conflict.”

How we understand the fabric of power and its repercussions depends on the individual. In Garaycochea’s work freedom is presented as a utopia where life is an intricate creation of chances.

Guido Garaycochea is an American citizen born in Lima, Peru. He studied Art at the “Escuela Nacional Superior de Bellas Artes del Perú”, a very strict and traditional school of Art, and graduated from Art School with several awards and honors. In 1992-93, he moved to Chile and resumed his studies there, studying for his Bachelor in Aesthetic Degree and later his Master’s degree in History and Theory of Art. He taught for many years at two Chilean universities, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion, and the Liceo Aleman School. At the same time, Garaycochea had more than fifteen Solo Art Shows as well as group art exhibitions in countries such as: Germany, Spain, Austria, Perú, Chile and the United States.
Garaycochea moved to the United States in the fall of 2003 to become an International Artist in Resident at The Griffis Art Center in New London, CT and later, in 2005, at I-Park in East Haddam, CT. Since then he has taught at Mitchell College in New London, UCONN, Mystic Museum of Art (formerly Mystic Arts Center), York Correctional Facility, Expressiones Cultural Center, and the Drop-In Learning Center, to mention a few. He also co-founded Expressiones Cultural Center in New London, CT in 2009, a non-profit organization that promotes understanding between the Anglo and Hispanic communities through the arts, in order to bridge cultural differences and to showcase Latin American arts and culture.

An exhibition reception and artist talk will be held on Thursday, September 14th from 5:00 – 7:00pm. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to 860.443.2545 ext. 2129.

For more information or to request images, please contact Rebecca Marsie at 860.443.2545, ext. 112 or at marsie@lymanallyn.org.

About the Lyman Allyn Art Museum
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building surrounded by 12 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents a number of changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of over 17,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses.

The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 129 or visit us on Facebook or the web at: www.lymanallyn.org.